Uniform Discharge Standards for Hazardous Substances

Uniform Discharge Standards for Hazardous Substances "Sewage treatment methods in public sewer systems and watershed sewers" primarily rely on microbial purification methods focused on the removal of organic matter, and often fail to fully treat many other harmful chemical substances. Therefore, the "Sewerage Act" stipulates that industrial wastewater discharged from factories and business establishments—specifically those substances that cannot be treated at the final treatment plant—must be treated to a standard nearly equivalent to the water quality standards for effluent from the final treatment plant before being discharged into the sewer system. The "Water Pollution Control Act," which establishes "uniform standards" for substances that have a significant adverse impact on the environment, has been strengthened year by year since its enactment in 1970, with the addition of new regulated substances and the corresponding expansion of the scope of designated facilities. On the corporate side, efforts to address recent issues—such as the scarcity of industrial water, restrictions on groundwater extraction to prevent land subsidence, and discharge volume limits resulting from total volume controls—have become increasingly active. There is a growing trend to go beyond simply treating wastewater to meet discharge standards, applying advanced treatments such as desalination and recovering and reusing the treated water. Consequently, reusing wastewater and valuable substances within it leads to cost reductions, and these efforts are also being advanced as part of environmental management systems based on ISO 14001. There is no doubt that "regulations on industrial wastewater" will continue to be strengthened in the future. Some substances previously exempt from regulation are suspected of being endocrine disruptors, and as the causal relationship between these substances and their effects on living organisms becomes clearer, businesses will be compelled to take action. "Uniform Discharge Standards" Small-scale facilities with a daily average discharge volume of less than one cubic meter were previously exempt from discharge regulations under the Water Pollution Control Act, except for designated hazardous substances. Such small-scale operations account for 90% of all facilities nationwide, and the discharge of untreated wastewater into rivers and other bodies of water has become a major problem. However, in recent years, all prefectures have been moving toward stricter regulations, such as establishing "additional standards" that exceed national standards. In October 2000, the Expert Committee on Discharge Regulations, under the Water Quality Subcommittee of the Central Council, established discharge standards for harmful substances such as fluoride, boron, and nitrate and nitrite nitrogen. The Ministry of the Environment intends to amend the relevant cabinet orders and implement them as early as spring 2001. "The 5th Total Pollutant Load Control" To improve water quality in large, enclosed water bodies, it is essential to effectively reduce the total amount of pollution entering those waters. For this reason, the Total Pollutant Load Control System was established through the 1978 amendment to the Water Pollution Control Act. Tokyo Bay, Ise Bay, and the Seto Inland Sea—where it is difficult to maintain or achieve environmental standards through conventional discharge regulations alone—were designated as target waters. Since 1979, total pollution control measures have been implemented in four phases, with COD (Chemical Oxygen Demand) as the designated parameter and fiscal years 1983, 1988, 1993, and 1998 as target years. According to the Ministry of the Environment’s FY1999 public water area water quality measurement results, the rate of compliance with environmental standards for health-related parameters—such as cadmium and cyanide—was 99.5%, indicating that wastewater treatment in the industrial sector has advanced significantly. However, the compliance rate for environmental standards regarding not only COD but also nitrogen and phosphorus remains low, and the current situation is one where red tides caused by eutrophication occur frequently. In October 2000, the Water Quality Subcommittee of the Central Environment Council compiled a report setting ranges for discharge concentration standards—which serve as guidelines for regulatory values independently determined by the relevant prefectures in these three sea areas—for 232 industry sectors, including the sewerage and fertilizer manufacturing industries. This report calls for nitrogen and phosphorus to be added as targets for total pollution control by fiscal year 2004—the target year for the Fifth Total Water Quality Control Plan—and also calls for stricter regulatory standards for COD in industries such as pulp, petrochemicals, and fermentation. In response to the report, the Ministry of the Environment plans to officially announce the standard ranges, and prefectures are expected to begin implementing the regulations in fiscal year 2001.